October 04, 2010

That's [Grant Wahl's] unavoidable conclusion after speaking to Chuck Blazer, the general secretary of CONCACAF, who confirmed that he expects FIFA to approve a new regional qualifying format for World Cup 2014.

This is terrible. It's a great rivalry that North American soccer needs desperately.

There is one point where Wahl loses me, though. The following isn't an example of why the rivalry is so great: "Mexican fans wearing printed 'F--- YOU DONOVAN' T-shirts tossed debris on the U.S. team and taunted every American so gleefully that the U.S. fan section needed an armed police escort to get out of the stadium."

That's not fun. It's sad. Mexico could still hate the U.S. while reducing the actual violence and harassment of American players and fans at Azteca.

There are a couple of valid points in there regarding the Carribean nations getting to play more meaningful games so that they can develop which would make the level of competition better (in the same vein as the other discussion involving European basketball teams limiting American players) or why the US Federation has to go along with it to garner CONCACAF support for the WC bid, but it seems like there could be another way to draw it up that still results in a big final group for qualifying rather than two smaller ones. The day that the US finally wins a game at Azteca is a day that the USSF desperately needs to see.